


Minute to Midnight

by CrumblingAsh



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Androids, Angst, Brian Banner's A+ Parenting, Canonical Child Abuse, Dubious Morality, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Extremely Dubious Consent, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, No Jarvis, Poor Bruce, Poor Tony, Protective Tony, it all goes wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 23:11:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4198605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His relationship with Tony is the only thing that has ever gone right in Bruce's horrific life.</p><p>After overhearing an argument between Pepper Potts and Obadiah Stane, he realizes there's nothing right about it at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Minute to Midnight

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Seconds to Sunrise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4116661) by [CrumblingAsh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh). 



> **prompt: "artificial"**

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_I’m lonely._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

His life had been a dark place, before they’d met.

 

* * *

 

 

When the lights to the manor are turned out, leaving the house as nothing more than a shadowed structure on a cliff by the sea in the middle of the night, Bruce balances on the back of the couch and stares out of the window – watches the maddening glitter of the stars to the soundtrack of ocean waves crashing against the rocks below.

 

He has no real interest in the contents of space – he knows the planets (and their compositions), knows their moons (and _their_ compositions), knows how long it takes each of them to revolve around the sun; he knows the other galaxies that spin and the theories of other Earth-like planets and the plausibility of life outside of Earth, but when he looks up at the sky, those thoughts are silent. Because when he’s looking at the stars, he’s looking up at the process of death – brilliant flashes of stars that have long since exploded, the agony of their deaths silent and beautiful by the time he’s able to see them.

 

And he finds peace in that. He thinks about the vacuum of space, the way it surrounds everything it touches in a freezing, encompassing darkness, squeezes and drains away the warmth of life until each thing is left at the brink with no other option but to combust, blow apart, and die.

 

There’s probably something wrong with him that he finds both the concept and the opportunity to experience it, beautiful.

 

“What are you doing out here?” A groggy voice grumps from behind him. “You left me alone so you could stargaze? Really?”

 

“Sorry,” he says automatically, not meaning a syllable of it as he twists to straddle the couch instead, and he can feel the softness of the smile the cuts his face as his eyes land on the half-dressed form standing in the middle of the room. There’s no moonlight to bathe the tanned expanse of skin, but his eyes adjust quickly enough that he can make out the quiver of the subtle abdominal muscles under the caress of the air conditioner. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

 

He watches as Tony shuffles forward, feels those too-damn clever eyes trace over his own outline, can feel the tension that births instantly at his words. He wants to stop it, whatever thoughts are going through the other man’s head, but times before have taught him the uselessness of any such attempts. Tony’s mind is a bullet train, races and produces at inhuman speeds – by the time anyone can think of stopping a line of thought, a conclusion has already been drawn with evidence and fact, stamped and embedded.

 

“Nightmares?” Tony asks softly, the usual odd note to his voice that always forms at the topic. “Again? You just had one a few nights ago.”

 

“And two nights before that,” Bruce admits with a wince, ducking away from the sharp look he knows he’ll receive for the confession. “Like I said, I didn’t want to wake you. And … I didn’t think it’d be a good idea to be so close to you, or anyone really, for a while after.”

 

In truth, ‘nightmare’ is only a correct term in the vaguest sense, for what he’d gone through only a few hours ago, what he’s ever gone through during them, really. Terror would probably be a more accurate description; horror. The visions that wash over him at night are _violent_ , suffocating, and inside of them he can’t breathe or move under the fear they chain him down with. They always feel real, as if he’s truly back in the past of his life, and the burn of his father’s raging eyes always sears against his skin with the blows of his attack; he chokes on the hatred of words he can hear as clearly as he had when they’d first been said – he wakes up not struggling for breath, keeps from flailing in panicked desperation only because some part of his mind, small and alert, screams that Tony’s beside him, too close to lose himself in the waves of fear, to lash out against what isn’t even there.

 

“I wish you _had_ woken me up.” The brunette sighs as he steps closer still – Bruce can see the draw of his shoulders, stressed and upset. Guilt stabs him low in the belly. “I don’t like you being out here by yourself in that state of mind.” He reaches out then, slowly as if he’s unsure he’ll be allowed to touch, and it’s so absurd that Bruce immediately closes the distance, snagging the extended hand as he slips off the couch. He always wants Tony’s touch.

 

“I’m okay,” he assures quietly as arms wrap firmly around him. He returns the hug just as tightly, feels the world righten. “They’re just nightmares, Tony, I know that. The past isn’t now. He can’t hurt me now.” Even if every time the belt falls in the nightmares, it feels exactly like the first blow. Every time.

 

The grip around him squeezes harder. “ _No one_ can hurt you now. _I won’t let them_.”

 

Bruce buries his head into Tony’s neck, and the shivers that he’d managed to get under control just minutes before return full-force under the security of Tony’s arms. He tries to hold them back, but this is _Tony_ , and in the hold the other man has locked him in, the feelings of safety and _love_ he always manages to envelope him in, and he breaks down at their first wave.

 

“God, sweetheart,” his lover murmurs against his temple, hands soothing up and down his back in increasing desperation. The touches wash away the stinging reminders of phantom pain. “Stop _doing_ this to yourself. I’m here now, Bruce. Come to me when this happens. You _have me_ to come to, now.”

 

He closes his eyes and soaks in the warmth.

 

“Let’s go back to bed.”

 

* * *

 

 

Feeling alive is a side-effect of being around Tony.

 

He’s all energy, all the time – not the rambunctious kind that demands leash and restraint (though Bruce is well aware of those who wish that they can tame him) – as if he runs on electricity and batteries instead of sleep and blood. Even when he’s not moving, attention seduced by a project on a screen, his skin practically vibrates, like currents surge beneath the surface, lighting him up; he can be completely still, but with just a breath, the entire room will shake under the physical manifestations of his genius.

 

Sometimes, it takes every ounce of self-control Bruce possesses just to look away from him, to focus on his own projects, to remind himself that he’s trying to do some good for the world through his work and that staring at the other man (drinking him in, basking in his company, memorizing every flawless detail) won’t do a thing to provide stable water filtration systems to the poorer villages of foreign countries.

 

It’s a task made harder every time that Tony, who knows about and is amused by this particular problem, throws one of his small, pleased smiles over his shoulder, straight at him.

 

“Finish that design,” he warns on the fifteenth time, after the genius’ smile has grown more cat-like and barely any change at all has morphed his work. “You know how Obadiah gets when you don’t get done on time.”

 

“Time, schmime,” Tony dismisses, puckers his lips teasingly before turning back to the display screens, just to be smart. “It’s hard to focus with you looking at me like I’m the greatest scientific phenomenon of the decade, big guy. Gives a guy ideas.”

 

“I know _all_ about your ideas,” Bruce drawls, shaking his head as his eyes flicker to his data … and then back on his companion. Damn it. “And definitely more than ‘of the decade’.”

 

“Sweet-talker.”

 

Discreetly, Bruce shoots another look in his direction.

 

The days after a nightmare, it’s always a little strange to Bruce that he doesn’t wake Tony when he’s had them. Because this, this right here with this man, this feels perfect. Safe. Right.

 

The memories Bruce has of his childhood are sharp and vivid – the tenderness of his mother’s smile, the hatred behind his father’s eyes – he remembers words and feelings as if they’ve never stopped occurring, as if his past and present are a giant mix inside of time that he’s never actually stepped away from. He doesn’t remember really ever being happy when he’d been smaller, doesn’t believe there’d ever been a small moment of contentment outside of his mother’s too-infrequent hugs under his father’s supervision. He knows that he’d been scared to sleep at night, that he’d dreaded going to school because of the taunts and teases, that most afternoons were spent alone in the backyard, lost in his melodramatic thoughts and surrounded by an overbearing sense of loneliness.

 

The day Tony had walked into his life resonates in his memory like the break of a sunrise on a day stuck too long on midnight. He remembers honest-to-God surprise at the genuine smile on the other man’s face, the invitation of friendship and the lack of ridicule and pain that followed, remembers the patience that had not waivered his hesitation to accept it – _Hi. I’m Tony Stark. Want to be my friend?_

 

“Hypocritical Bruce Banner is hypocritical,” Tony sings suddenly from his chair, not looking up from the blueprints beaming brightly before him. Bruce blinks rapidly, yanked back. “I can feel you staring instead of working. You’re a bad influence.”

 

There has never been a flaw of his that Tony has ever pointed out, no criticism he’s ever made of any of Bruce’s habits or interests, nothing that’s ever made him feel anything else than completely wanted. It’s completely insane that Bruce doesn’t even consider to wake him up – he knows he won’t be pushed away. Never pushed away from Tony.

 

He pushes away from his desk a little.

 

“You’re right. I am,” he murmurs, slipping his glasses from his face. It makes his target, who has turned toward him curiously at his movement, easier to focus on. He raises his eyebrows. “You should do something about that.”

 

Tony cackles softly and launches.

 

* * *

 

 

As a child, Bruce had dreamed up scenarios of his future – tiny little stories he’d indulged himself in when alone in the yard, something to keep him occupied and not so close to the dark. Tales based off of tv shows or movies, fantastic adventures in which he had never been the star, but a coveted side-character important to the hero. Someone to be rescued, protected, cherished and simply understood. They make him embarrassed now, to remember them, but they’d been such a comfort to him as a child.

 

None of them had ever included anything like this.

 

Tony kisses the side of his neck softly, strips him slowly of his clothes, and whispers in his ear, “I want to ride you.”

 

Bruce just smiles at him as he’s pushed gently onto his back.

 

There are different rules for this, depending on what room they’re in. In Tony’s room, wrapped in high-thread count sheets, they’re both silent, they’re both slow, they’re both even, caught up in each other with no display of charge or need that isn’t mutual, their noises lost inside of kisses and skin. In Bruce’s room, it’s about worship, with Tony spending _hours_ trailing first his fingers, then his lips, then his whimpers across Bruce’s body, while Bruce directs him, praises him, touches him back. Here, in the tiny room off the back of the workshop, on a bed of black jersey sheets that smell permanently of metal and grease and surrounded by walls of red, it’s Tony’s show, and Bruce can’t speak until he’s told.

 

It’s his favorite.

 

Tony’s in charge, but like this, stretched and naked, he’s exposed. There’s no clothing to disguise him, no Stark media-mask for him to hide behind, no ulterior motives than to impale himself on Bruce’s attentive cock and fuck himself to incoherence. There’s no need in him to be taken, or to be punished for some unnamed crime he’s sure he’s committed, and while Bruce does adore the times where Tony takes him apart, lavishes him with the love he rarely vocalizes, he loves the times where Tony takes for himself too. Loves being able to give that to him.

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Tony whimpers as he lowers himself; Bruce bites his lip against the urge to thrust into the buzzing heat enveloping his dick. “Fuck, love your cock, sweetheart. Just right, just perfect. It’s – _unf, God_ – it’s _perfect._ ”

 

 _Perfect,_ Bruce echoes silently, watches the way Tony rocks a little, feels every inch. The words flow in his mind like a script. _You’re perfect, Tony. I love it when you use me. I love it when you use me like this, when you take me for what you need. You’re so good, this is what **I** need, what I want. Made for this, going into you. Fucking you. I want you, always want you Tony. _

 

(It’s his mantra, words that just come in a swell of feeling and no dedicated thought – he’s only ever spewed them once, their first time, rambled them off over and over again until Tony had slapped his hand over his mouth to silence him. There’d been tears in his eyes, a torrent of emotion that Bruce hadn’t been able to identify, then. He’d shivered after, cold to the touch, the opposite of everything he should have been – Bruce won’t say them aloud, never again).

 

“Come back. Stay with me,” Tony pleads now, slicing through the pull of his mind with words – he rams down hard on the next stroke, bottoms out with a cut-off cry that would spur Bruce’s worry if not for the nails that scrape over his chest, scratch across his nipples. He whines sharply at the bite of it, can’t help but thrust up under the wave of pleasure, encouraged by the way his lover falls into him with the move. “Bruce, stay. Stay, stay, stay-.”

 

“’M’here,” he groans back – he’s not explicitly asked to speak, but he can’t not, with that plea. Pulling a hand from its twist in the sheets, he cradles the back of Tony’s neck as he thrusts up again. The sob into his neck is more than satisfying, lights him up like a firework. “’M’here. Got you, Tony. Not goin’ anywhere. Got you.”

 

Tony lifts his head, just enough to meet his eyes, not enough to dislodge Bruce’s hold on his neck. His pupils are blown, irises nearly swallowed with desperate black, and he’s beautiful all of the time, but like this, lost from himself and sunk into pleasure, he’s brilliant. “Tell me,” he begs. The shifts of his hips have become more straight; Bruce can feel the drag of his cock against his stomach – wet, needing him. “Tell me.”

 

There’s a different script now, specifically asked for.

 

Bruce’s other hand darts from the sheets to Tony’s hip, squeezes it tightly as he increases the pressure around Tony’s neck. “Tell you what?” He demands over the moan his actions cause. “Tell you what, Tony? How you were made for this?” He rolls his own hips, holds his weight to his heels for leverage as he works out an angle he knows will work. “Taking my cock like this? What a good lay you are? How amazing you make me feel, how much I love watching your ass stretch around me? Is that what you want to hear?” He doesn’t exactly feel the smirk that forms on his face, wishes this could be tender, but this is good too. So damn good. “Or would you rather I not say anything at all?” He teases. “And just see how long you can hang on?”

 

_“Bruce.”_

 

He holds Tony against his chest, keeps his head up just enough to keep looking, and fucks him.

 

It’s amazing, empowering – his body burns like he’s on acid and walking on a ledge he can’t feel from.

 

That pleasure is dwarfed in watching Tony.

 

As good as the sex between them physically feels right now, as it always feels, watching the ecstasy that steals its way over his companion’s features is what ignites Bruce. The way his eyes spark as he drowns in it, the way his jaw drops open, his lips parting with each frantic, excited breath. His body is tense in Bruce’s arms yet completely trusting, twitches to get closer instead of away, as if he wishes they could fuse together, stay like this forever.

 

Bruce fucks him harder, loses himself to the musical array of cries and moans that begin to build, and intends to give him that.

 

* * *

 

 

The thing is, Tony has had a painful life, too.

Bruce brushes his fingers over and over through the dampened strands of Tony’s hair, absorbs the softness of each pass and closes his eyes to relish in the feeling. His lover is wrapped around him like an octopus, and the heat of their exertion should make the bare skin-to-skin contact unbearable, but he doesn’t mind. They’re sticky, drenched in sweat, exposed to the world because the blankets are uncomfortable, but each burst of satisfied breath against Bruce’s neck just feeds his smile.

 

He loves it when Tony’s like this. Calm. Satiated. Somewhat aware that he’s wanted.

 

Bruce hadn’t met Howard Stark before the man had died, but he sees the echoes of his life every day. They reverberate in the news, when the media makes unfounded comparisons between Tony and his father; along the walls of the manor, in the photos of Howard and his wife but never of Howard and his son; in the steely set of Tony’s jaw whenever the man is mentioned, in the smile with empty eyes he wears at every annual memorial when speaking of Howard to the press; in the collection of aged whiskey and wine that adorns the floor-to-ceiling shelving in the living room, stared at on melancholy days, held on bad days, but never opened.

 

He knows that, like himself, Tony had grown up lonely, had felt unwanted. The only difference between their childhoods had been the physical aspects, and sometimes Bruce thinks that may be worse. At least his father had expressed his hate, given Bruce something to identify it with – Howard had died with his reasons, and now Tony lives with that confusion of what he’d done wrong, the inability to figure out how to stop doing whatever it is he’s messing up.

 

(Bruce doesn’t believe in violence, but whenever he sees Tony like that, sees the same emotions that he feels after his nightmares, when he stares up the sky and wonders what it would be like to suffocate, he imagines the man from the pictures. And he imagines his own hands around Howard Stark’s neck, squeezing, pressing in with his thumbs until he hears a pop, until the breathing turns ragged and ineffective and finally – gone. Over. He’d never let Tony watch, but on even darker nights, he wonders if he would want to).

 

“You’re thinking too loud,” Tony grumbles into him, and the vibrations trace tickles along his shoulders that draw an unbidden chuckle from his chest. Bruce feels the triumphant smirk against his neck, the small act making the anger inside of him melt away just like that. “Ruining the afterglow with your brain. Rude.”

 

“Sorry,” he whispers in return, drags his fingernails lightly over Tony’s scalp on the next pass just to hear the pleased purr. The other man slithers in closer, burrows in like a kitten seeking protection, and Bruce is glad to give the comfort, drags him in to a tangle, becoming an octopus himself. “Please, continue glowing.”

 

“As if you’re not.”

 

Bruce hums noncommittally, seeing no need to confirm what they both know. Tony always makes him glow – it’s a perfect description for the emotion that stirs in him every day, when Tony’s eyes open in the morning, when Tony has an idea, when Tony makes a joke, when Tony hugs him, when Tony throws paperclips at him in the lab when he’s bored, when Tony laughs at something, when Tony goes to sleep – everything. Every day. Tony makes him float, makes him want to be alive.

 

“I love you,” he says on a breath.

 

Tony tenses briefly against him. “You always say that.”

 

It’s said lightly. It’s anything but.

 

Bruce inhales slowly, puffs his chest against Tony to see the man rise with it, and lets go slowly. There’s pain in every passing second. “I always mean it. I know you don’t like to hear it,” he adds quickly. “But … God, Tony, I just need you to hear it sometimes. I love you.”

 

There’s a beat of pure silence – nothing new.

 

The genius turns then, balances himself sideways on Bruce’s chest, catches their hands together in a tight, quick movement. His fingers, gentle and timid, instantly splay over the ring wrapped around Bruce’s middle finger – a gift from his mother, a silver band with his shimmering blue birthstone that never fails to capture Tony’s attention when he gets like this. A focus point, maybe – something to distract himself from the feelings.

 

“Why, though?” The insecure note in his voice deadens him, kills – Bruce tightens his other arm across Tony’s hips, wishes that he _could_ make it so that they can become one person, where this insane, too-intelligent man with a heart of fucking gold is safe inside of him, hidden from this world that wants to hurt him, that _has_ hurt him. Put him somewhere safe, where he can understand that he’s loved, that he’s needed, that he doesn’t have to do anything special to earn it.

 

Tony always wants reasons, when Bruce says the words – wants facts, detailed descriptions of every aspect of himself that makes Bruce feel this way.

 

If he’s ever had any, he doesn’t remember. There’s nothing specific anymore. It’s all jumbled. It’s everything.

 

“I just do, Tony,” he murmurs, wants the man to understand but knowing that he won’t, because this is another thing that Howard Stark has ruined for his son. Tony twists his ring around in a circle on his finger in an irritated fashion, shivers a little as Bruce drops a tired kiss to his shoulder. “I just love you. I … If you want, I can think of some reasons, write them down-”

 

Tony sighs heavily against him, nuzzles under his chin like he’s defeated. “I’d really rather just sleep.”

 

Bruce is unbearably grateful that he doesn’t let go of his hand.

 

* * *

 

 

He tries to avoid interfering with Tony’s professional life.

 

The business world isn’t for Bruce, doesn’t really interest him at all – he knows how it works, understands why Tony makes weapons and what good the military contracts do for other, more humanitarian projects. He doesn’t like what the weapons are used for, doesn’t like how project deadlines will sometimes drain Tony, how the tabloid headlines that scream **_Merchant of Death_** will make him shut down, every time.

 

But he understands.

 

Today is a deadline day – today is a _missed_ deadline day.

 

Which means Tony is slaving away in fervor over the latest missile design down in the workshop, too frantic and scatter-focused on a fine-lined edge to take anything longer than a bathroom break. It’s become common, the mess of a missed deadline day, and by now Bruce has a routine down – a morning kiss of greeting always makes Tony pause, happy to take the minute to reciprocate. Then coffee, which is always enthusiastically accepted. And then a light lunch, which is less desired, but that he always gets the engineer to eat.

 

He’s making a sandwich (cucumber and mayonnaise with a tiny sliver of ham, something Tony’s likely to choke down quickly with as little complaint as possible) when he hears Pepper Potts’ recognizable voice from the front room.

 

“I can promise you that he’s working on it right now, I’ve already been down there and checked myself. I’m also under instruction to tell you that no one else is allowed in the workshop until he’s done.”

 

Her tone is both consoling and final, which makes Bruce smile. He likes Pepper both as a person, with her genuine kindness and waspishly protective temper, and as Tony’s personal assistant, the way she can so easily handle his high-maintenance lover without treating him as if he’s anything less than human. She’s good for Tony. An ally to balm what his life had done to him.

 

“And I suppose that lack of invitation isn’t all-inclusive, right?”

 

He frowns. And that would be Obadiah Stane.

 

Bruce is uncertain on how he feels about Stane – they’ve never officially met, because in spite of Tony’s affection for the older man, he’s always seemed to manipulate a situation to keep an sort of introduction from occurring. He knows that Stane had served as sort of a substitute father-figure for Tony after Howard Stark’s death, that he’s important to the company and on some level, to Tony himself, but something about him rubs Bruce the wrong way. He’s watched him on the television, beaming at press conferences with his hand always securely on Tony’s shoulder, and it just seems … wrong.

 

“If you’re talking about Bruce,” he hears Pepper say, and edge of her coldness barely audible. “Then you would be right. As you know, Mr. Stark has given him access to everything and every place within the manor with no exceptions.”

 

“It’s a _distraction_ ,” Stane hisses back, and Bruce snorts quietly as he drops the cucumbers onto the bread. Tony doesn’t get distracted unless he wants to be.

 

“Regardless of your opinion,” Pepper says primly. “Mr. Stark has made his own very clear. If you’d like to discuss it with him, I can try and fit a meeting with you into his schedule-.”

 

“Don’t you “schedule” me, Pepper. Tony is nearly thirty-years-old! It’s high time he stop playing with toys and focus on getting real work done.”

 

A surge of sharp anger shoots through him. _Toys_. _Real work_. As if Tony doesn’t slave away for hours on weapon designs for Stane, only to turn around as soon as they’re done to perfect a piece of medical equipment for a free clinic in a poorer section of the city. As if he stops working at all, ever, outside of the few hours he steals with Bruce to be grounded, to find relief and comfort.

 

“Mr. Stane, the project is only two days late, and Mr. Stark has assured me that it will be done within the day-.”

 

“Every project has been late ever since he built that damn thing! He’s probably down there with it right now, still playing make-believe four years later that it’s actually human.”

 

Bruce freezes, the knife of mayonnaise tight in his hand.

 

 “Mr. Stane-.”

 

“And he destroyed the blueprints! The first organic android, and he refuses to make more! And where the hell did the name ‘Bruce’ even come from, anyway?”

 

What?

 

“As I said, Mr. Stane. Mr. Stark will send you the design when it’s completed. Until then, maybe you should return to the office…”

 

Bruce shakes so hard that the mayonnaise falls from the knife and onto the counter.

 

What?

 

* * *

 

 

_(Bruce’s lips still tingled, and Tony was blinking in surprise. “Why …” he swallowed, hard, and Bruce watched the bob of the Adam’s apple in his throat. “Why did you do that?”_

_He felt himself shrug, smiling despite the clear confusion in Tony’s eyes. His first kiss. It felt wonderful. “I wanted to.”)_

 

 

Stane is wrong. Of course he’s wrong. It’s ridiculous, some fucking stupid rambling from an angry, jealous old man who isn’t getting what he wants fast enough.

 

Androids don’t exist. The most the world has physically come up with are the bad animatronic pirates from Disney, or the cool yet clearly fake dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. _Organic_ androids, with human features and skin and hair and blood? It’s something out of _Terminator._ No one on the planet can accomplish making anything so intricate.

 

Bruce’s hand trembles.

 

It _is_ Tony.

 

He’s locked himself in the bathroom of one of the guestrooms. He looks in the mirror and sees himself, alive and breathing and _pale_ , staring back, frantically searching for anything that doesn’t look human.

 

There isn’t, of course. There won’t be. He’s human. He’s alive. He’s had parents, had a childhood, had lived through happiness and pain and trauma – went to school, had a scattering of friends that hadn’t lasted, graduated college. He’d _met_ Tony, at the conference in Milan on New Year’s Eve. Tony had asked if they could be friends. _You don’t ask your own creations if they want to be your friend._

 

The butter knife is still in his hand.

 

 

_(“You kissed me because … you wanted to?” Tony said slowly. His expression was carefully blank, and Bruce’s delight faltered._

_“Sorry, shit, I’m sorry Tony. I shouldn’t have assumed-.”)_

 

_I’m human,_ he thinks desperately. His fingers squeeze the edge of the sink so hard it’s a miracle neither have cracked. _I’m human. I remember my life. I feel emotions. I feel pain. I fee love. I’m human, I am human. A normal, living, breathing person._

 

Stane had been being metaphorical. Bruce _reminds_ him of an android, because he works hard, because that’s the excuse of why they’d never met. Tony’s _made_ him into … maybe Stane sees him as a lackey. Something just to be used. Men like that thinks those things. It’s metaphorical. _Fuck, Banner, you’re smarter than this._

 

Yet he’s locked himself in a bathroom with a knife, and can clearly see in his mind exactly what he wants to do with it.

 

 

_(Tony shook his head, grinning a bit in a way that immediately calmed him. “No, I mean. I liked it, big guy, okay? It’s just … you didn’t kiss me just because you thought it would make me happy, right? You wanted to kiss me because-.”_

_“Well, I_ hoped _it would make you happy.” Bruce flushed. “But I wanted to kiss you to make myself happy, too. If that makes sense.”)_

 

_This is stupid_ , he’s thinking even as he wipes the dull blade against his pants, cleaning it. _This is dumb, you idiot, what are you doing?_

 

 _Just a little cut,_ he’s already arguing with himself. _Enough so that I’ll bleed more than … than some damn organic robot. Enough for proof. I’ll tell Tony it was an accident while making the sandwich. Just a little cut. Just do it. Do it, prove it’s a lie, and go to Tony. Do it, go to Tony. Do it, go to Tony. Do it, go to Tony. Do it-_

 

In a flash, he runs the knife heavily across the back of his hand, inches under his mother’s ring.

 

It burns, hot and heavy – the knife isn’t made for cutting flesh.

 

But it bleeds.

 

Thank God, it fucking bleeds.

 

 

_(“You, what, wanted to see what I tasted like?” It was a hesitant tease, and Bruce smiled again. “Well? Did you like it?”_

_“I dunno,” he teased back with equal hesitation. “I’ll have to try again.”)_

 

 

It’s not enough blood.

 

Bruce had cut deep.

 

There’s supposed to be more blood for a such a deep cut.

 

The knife clatters to the floor as he frees his fingers to touch the wound; his stomach is already growing hollow. ‘Perfect,’ Tony had said.

 

He recognizes the glimmer of metal between the two sides of his no longer bleeding wound, where bone should be.

 

This twisting design of wire.

 

 

_(“Yeah?” Tony’s eyes were bright, a sense of wonder in them that made Bruce’s gut clench. How could anyone so wonderful, so beautiful as Tony, doubt that they could be wanted?_

_“Yeah,” he said, and swooped in for another kiss before Tony could argue out of it.)_

 

* * *

 

“Tony.” Bruce tries to say it as a demand for attention; it comes out just shy of a plea.

 

He feels numb. Like something’s been shut off inside of him. Hell, maybe he’d nicked a sensor when he cut into himself.

 

“Gimme a sec, sweetheart,” comes the mumbled, slightly distracted response – the man’s face is millimeters from his screen, a frown on his face as his fingers knock away one element and drag over another. “I’m almost done. Gotta send this to Obie before he blows up and the world ends or something. I’m calling it the Jericho, by the way, after that creepy old tv show you like so much. What do you think?”

 

The workshop feels, for the first time that he can remember, cold. Unwelcoming. For the first time he doesn’t feel safe here.

 

“Tony, _please_.” It’s a whimper, whispered over the sob that’s been building in his chest since he’d carefully touched the wires inside of his hand, and it takes everything not to fold in on himself, to crumble the way his mind tells him he had as a child, wanting nothing more than for his father to leave, to be in his mother’s arms.

 

Maybe it’s the tone of his voice, maybe he’s finished – all Bruce knows is that Tony whirls around, narrowed brown eyes going wide at the sight of him, the trails of dried blood on his fingers.

 

“What happened?” The genius demands, bolting forward. “Did you cut yourself on accident? How deep? Why didn’t you put something over it, pressure-.”

 

It kills him, but Bruce steps back.

 

“It wasn’t on accident. And deep enough that … I know. I saw.”

 

Tony stops moving, and he feels the insane need to laugh. Tears build in his eyes instead.

 

“I don’t know why,” he confesses, shaking his head. “Since I already know the answer, but all I want to ask you right now is if I’m real. I mean, I know I’m not, but I want to ask. I think I want you to tell me I am. I think I want you to wake me up. Tell me this is a nightmare.”

 

“Bruce-.”

 

“The nightmares hurt more, though. This is … fuck.” A chuckle with a hysterical edge breaks free. “This is real.”

 

_“Bruce-.”_

 

“It’s … difficult, connecting these things in my head, even with the evidence … _literally_ in my hands. So I’m going to need you to do me a favor, Tony, and not lie to me. I’m going to give you the evidence, and the contradictions to that evidence, and you’re going to help me make those connections. Alright?”

 

Bruce wonders if he sees tears in Tony’s eyes, too, as he slowly nods. Maybe. Maybe not.

 

“My body is made of metal and wires,” he starts, separates himself as much as possible from the pull the words start to form. “And some apparently self-sustaining organic material that has supposedly never existed outside of fiction. Which _shouldn’t_ exist outside of fiction, logically, except I’m talking to potentially the only person on the planet capable of making fiction into reality. And I’m not Tony Stark, but I’m not stupid, so the connection I’m forming between these two things is that … _you_ … _made_ me. Some sort of … artificial intelligence as a lifeform. Right?” He swallows thickly – his words bring a flinch, but no verbal confession. “Tony?”

 

“… _Yes_.” Is the harshly whispered reply.

 

Bruce feels like he should be proud at how honest his lover is being. But he still feels nothing at all. No pride. No fresh burst of pain at the confirmation of Stane’s accusation. Nothing.

 

“That’s not where my difficulties are coming from, though. Because see, I can see that I’m not human, and you’ve just told me that I’m not human, that you made me, but … I have memories. I remember growing up. I remember a lot of pain. I remember being lonely. How can I remember those things, Tony, if they never happened?”

 

Silence greets his words.

 

“You said you wouldn’t lie to me,” he reminds the other man softly. Tony looks down, his entire head bowing.

 

“… I implanted them.”

 

And now Bruce feels something. A hot, small pierce of pain in his chest (odd when he apparently doesn’t have a heart to feel it) – the burning of tears returning to his eyes.

 

Fake … they’re all fake. None of it is real at all.

 

_God. Fuck. God._

 

“I remember my father beating me,” he murmurs aloud.

 

Tony inhales sharply. “It never happened,” he hisses. “Do you hear me, Bruce? It _never happened_. No one has ever hurt you like that. I would _never_ let anyone do _anything_ -.”

 

As if that makes it any better. Bruce shakes his head violently. The fire in his chest is growing.

 

“No,” he cuts off. “No, Tony, I can – I can remember feeling it. The … the pain. I remember every time he’d trade the leather strap of the belt for its buckle, because I can remember _every single time_ it broke the skin. I can hear the whistle of the clasp through the air, I remember bracing for the hit because I knew it would hurt worse. I remember smelling my own blood, I remember that the pain was cold, I remember begging him to stop, begging him not to cut me, not to hurt me anymore, telling him that I’d be good or better or whatever I thought he wanted to hear. And him telling me to shut up.”

 

“Bruce, God, _it didn’t_ -.”

 

He’s shaking again. “I always thought I was so lucky to have survived all of that, to have walked away without a scar.”

 

“I was angry, alright?” Tony shouts then, hands splaying wide in frustration. When he looks up, his eyes are raging with the hurt that Bruce hates to see on him. “I was angry when I programmed you, Bruce. I wanted … fuck, I wanted someone to have had it worse than me. I … I won’t lie, Bruce, I won’t – I wanted you to feel that pain every fucking day, when I made you.”

 

_Made you._

 

Stop, stop, stop, stop-!

 

He can’t. It’s like his body has been lit aflame to melt the ice that has numbed him. He wants it to stop, but there’s metal inside of his hands instead of bone. His life is fake. He can’t stop talking.

 

“And my mother?” His beautiful mother, with her sweet smile and loving hugs – the only person other than Tony to have loved him. “I watched my father kill her, Tony, _because_ of me. She was trying to save me from him, get us away, and he … he grabbed her. He threw her to the driveway and slammed her head into the ground over and over until I couldn’t recognize her face anymore. She was crying for me, but she’d locked me in the car. I couldn’t get out, couldn’t stop him from killing her. I watched her blood soak into the cement, I watched her stop moving. I watched him let her go and wipe his hand across his mouth and leave a trail of her blood over his face. I _remember_ that, Tony. I have _nightmares_ about it.”

 

“I never meant for you to have the nightmares.” It’s quiet, somber. Tony looks heartbroken and why should he, really? Didn’t he make that story? Didn’t he think of those details? “It’s a glitch in … in the coding. I looked at it, after the first few that woke you up. I wanted to … to fix it for you. But I can’t, not without … not without resetting you completely. And I can’t do that.”

 

“Why not?” Bruce feels his head cock and isn’t sure why he does it. Isn’t sure why he’s doing anything right now except screaming, raging, breaking Tony and breaking himself. “Sounds like it’d simple. You’re a tech genius, Tony, and I know enough theory about it to know that you just have to … take me offline. Erase it all. I’m sure you could program the same story again, you’re creative enough, so that wouldn’t be a problem if that’s what you’re concerned about. The nightmares bother you.” He blinks slowly. “I’m broken. You can’t stand it when things are broken.”

 

“I’m not _erasing you_ , Bruce. Fuck.” He sounds ruined – war breaks out in his mind; comfort Tony, stay away. Comfort Tony, stay away. “I would never do that to you. Sweetheart, I couldn’t.”

 

Right. Because he can trust Tony. You can trust your god, can’t you?

 

 “Why do you call me that?” He asks instead, the other thought stabbing too hard.

 

“What?”

 

“That. ‘Sweetheart’.” Bruce air-quotes the word. It’s not what he wants to ask – it’s nowhere near what he wants to ask, but his body is burning, and he’s tired, and he’s never lived a day of the life he remembers and Tony is as beautiful and perfect as ever. “It’s the only … affectionate nickname you use with me. Why use it at all? To toy with me?” He swallows again.

 

Watches as Tony slowly, very slowly, shakes his head.

 

“It’s, no, it’s … damn it, it’s because I love you.”

 

The fire bursts in his chest like a close-range shotgun blast.

 

Tony has never said those words.

 

Tony hates it when Bruce says those words. Will do everything in his power so that Bruce doesn’t say those words.

 

He’s saying them now and he’s promised not to lie and everything is supposed to be fake, it’s all fake.

 

He stumbles, hard, and Tony darts forward, grabs his hand, fingers sliding over the ring.

 

The ring. Laughter barks from Bruce’s throat, brief and bitter. Of course.

 

“This … ha, this isn’t from my mother.” He doesn’t have to look to know that Tony is looking at the ring, too, inches above the revealing slice in his hand. At the glittering blue stone inside of it, the seems to be shining a little more brightly than normal. “You did. You did, Tony, fuck, is it- it _is_ , ** _fuck_**.” He pulls, watches as his skin splits a little more to expose the red-flecked silver of the metal inside. “Let go, let go.”

 

“Bruce, please, don’t do this. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m _so sorry_.”

 

He wants Tony’s arms. He wants Tony’s smile. Or maybe he’s just programmed to.

 

He _wants his mother._

 

God, he wants _Tony._

 

“I can’t stay here, let me go, _Tony, please, I can’t-.”_

 

“Don’t leave-.”

 

Bruce can’t tell if he’s twisting away from Tony or into him.

 

But he watches Tony twist the ring.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bruce wakes up wrapped in the green cotton sheets of his bed, buried in Tony’s arms.

 

There’s a weight of lead in his stomach, a sensation not unlike being too full after overeating – his head is fuzzy.

 

“Nightmare?” Tony whispers into his hair, tone curious and oddly tentative. His fingers are dancing carefully up and down the back of his neck, and there’s no indication that he wants to pull away, that he’d prefer the situation to be reversed.

 

“I … don’t know.” The feeling is certainly similar, the knowledge that something had been wrong, that he’d been upset, unhappy. But there’s no pain in his back, no memories of death. He feels wonderfully content in Tony’s arms. “Maybe? If it was, I can’t remember. Not that I’m complaining.”

 

The arm draped around his waist tightens. “I’m not either,” the man replies fervently, pressing a kiss against his temple. Bruce revels in the display of affection, the warmth that seeps into him from the press of lips.

 

“You okay?” He can’t help but ask. He’ll blame the feeling, the knowledge that something’s not right, that something’s broken. An audible confirmation that Tony’s fine seems needed. He does need it.

 

“I’m fine, big guy,” is huffed against him. The lips barely lift from his head. “Long day, is all. Obie’s project was hell, and you scared the fuck out of me with how deep you cut yourself, not going to lie.”

 

Cut?

 

As if on cue, his hand throbs violently, and Bruce tosses a curious glance in its direction, surprised by the sight of the gleam of white medical wrapping covering it, just below his mother’s ring.

 

“I… don’t remember that,” he admits. Tony huffs again, though this time it sounds more amused.

 

“Yeah, well, it was a little scary for you, too. You passed out.” Bruce jerks back in dismay, eyes narrowing at the sight of the smile on Tony’s face. “Seriously,” the genius adds.

 

“I did not fucking pass out.” He considers his hand again. A bad cut, a terrified Tony – it can explain the feeling. The way he’s still tired.

 

Why they’re in his room for anything other than sex.

 

He yawns, then, can’t keep the grin from his face as Tony burrows back in, buries his face into Bruce’s neck and stays there.

 

“Go back to sleep.” It’s tempting. Maybe he’ll feel less weird, when he wakes up again. “I’m here.”

 

“Got you to save me from the nightmares now, right?” He tries to make it a tease, but his eyes are beginning to close, and it slips out as more of a genuine question. Tony drops another of the wonderful kisses to his neck as sleep begins to pull him under. He thinks he feels something warm and wet dripping down his neck.

 

“Always, sweetheart.” And then, so soft Bruce isn’t sure if it’s from Tony or the beginnings of a dream, “I was lonely, before you. That’s why, that’s the reason. I’m sorry. I've got you, Bruce. I love you.”


End file.
